Book Review: Betrayed

Synopsis

Zoey Redbird, new Leader of the Dark Daughters, is coming to terms with the powers the vampyre goddess, Nyx, has given her.

Comments

The reading level on this is low, but the content is pretty mature. Check out the review for Book 1 of this series for more info. It’s a fairly dark content, as well.

Language

Level 1, 2, 3  [?]

Sexual Content

Teens engage in heavy petting. There is a reference to a previous incident of oral sex.

Drugs/Alcohol

Wine is served at school functions because vampyres can’t get drunk. Teens talk about ‘getting trashed’ on cheap beer and smoke ‘nasty joints’, getting drunk and high.

Violence/Disturbing

Parents slap their teen daughter hard across the face.  A main character `dies’ when she fails to convert fully to a vampire.  A bit gruesome and bloody.  A teacher uses several of these partially `dead’ kids to attack and kill human teens.

Social/Family

A teen boy is gay and his parents, `were not okay with him being gay.’ Zoey calls her step-father ’step-loser’, and he is portrayed as a bad-mannered religious fundamentalist. Word use: fag. The teens know something bad is going to happen and so call in a bomb threat to keep people away from it. An older male teacher acts as if he is coming on to Zoey.

Religion/Spiritual

Zoey’s step-father (a religious fundamentalist) is described as ‘worshiping a god who vilifies pleasure, relegates women to roles that are little-more than servants and brood mares…and seeks to control worshipers through guilt and fear.’ The teens worship the goddess Nyx and there are various rituals and ceremonies involving earth elements.  A teen has visions of future tragedies.